Author: Jo

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Big Picture Climate Change Emissions Impossible Energy Revival Pet Peeves Political Nightmare Social Change Technological Sideshow

An Irritating Truth

An Irritating Truth

An Irritating Truth
by Jo Abbess
17 September 2009

Essay to answer the question : ‘Which technical solutions offer the best potential for decreasing Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions over the next 50 years?’ based on the key text, Chapter 4, entitled “Energy Supply” of the mitigation volume of the Working Group III (WG3) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) published in 2007.

https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg3/ar4-wg3-chapter4.pdf

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Bad Science Climate Change

Climate Science for Beginners

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC : GLOBAL WARMING 101 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJAbATJCugs

Each year the Climate Camp run a wide-ranging agenda of workshops, with subjects from Climate Change Policy to how to build efficient camping “rocket” camping stoves.

Here follows the text and graphics from this year’s “Climate 101” workshop. Do follow up the sources and check when you encounter the myths and ask yourselves why they are still being propagated.

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Climate Change Eating & Drinking Emissions Impossible Social Change

Tesco Town : Electric Democracy

My, my, what a splendidly entertaining and lively Planning Committee meeting was held at the Walthamstow Town Hall yesterday evening.

The juggernaut of Tesco met the clamouring masses of the people of Hale End and Highams Park head on, and it wasn’t a walkover.

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Climate Change Low Carbon Life Political Nightmare Social Change

Drax Coal Train Protesters

Photo Credit : sitefeed

So, what do you think would be appropriate Community Service orders for the 29 men and women who held up the coal train to Drax “the Destroyer” power station in June 2008 ?

https://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/sep/04/drax-protesters-sentence

Should they be sentenced to build a straw bale, lime and mud community centre in Liverpool ? Should they be required to host Permaculture seminars in inner London ? Should they be asked to take part in leafletting and campaigning for the 10:10 campaign ?

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Behaviour Changeling Big Picture Climate Change Pet Peeves Social Change

Tesco Town : Worship the Blue Stripes

Sometimes a plan is just so wrong that it has to be resisted.

Tesco want to build a rather large retail store in my very local area, implanting a supermarket that looks more than twice the size of any other building here, and shoehorning in over 200 “residential units” to boot.

It may be legal, and it may even pass some of the planning guidelines and strategies, but it’s clearly a resource grab – trying to put as many profit-generating assets as possible into a limited space.

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Bait & Switch Behaviour Changeling Big Picture Climate Change Contraction & Convergence Geogingerneering Media Meltdown Pet Peeves Political Nightmare Renewable Resource Social Change Technological Sideshow The Data

Everybody Dance Now !

Dancing with Bicycles

Whenever you hear government ministers or public figures telling the people that technology will save us, remember this : the word “technology” is synonymous with the word “business”.

“Technology” is Big Engineering, and this is what is done by large companies and corporations. Large organisations that make profit by selling manufactured products and Energy always have a surplus set aside for their communications budgets, and that includes persuading government people that their business is invaluable and needs promoting.

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Behaviour Changeling Climate Change Pet Peeves Social Change

A Tale of Two Rivers

My August Bank Holiday weekend camp of choice was Greenbelt this year, as I had been invited to contribute to a workshop on campaign activism entitled “Hatching a plot” :-

https://www.greenbelt.org.uk

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Climate Change Social Change

Something For The Weekend ?

London’s great : there’s so much to do. Or rather, so much to buy.

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Acid Ocean Bait & Switch Big Picture China Syndrome Climate Change Emissions Impossible Low Carbon Life Political Nightmare Unutterably Useless Utter Futility

Richard Black Hijacks Debate

Environmentalism has trudged a long, winding, often silent road, with many cul-de-sacs of defeat, desperation and despair.

In the last few years there has been a raising of the collective consciousness about how many problems are interrelated with an obscure corner of gas chemistry, which offers grave prospects for the whole of Life on Earth.

Ecologists and treehuggers of all varieties have started to gather round the camp fire of Climate Change, finding that people will pay attention to the destruction of Nature if they pay attention to their own fate first.

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Behaviour Changeling Big Picture Carbon Army Carbon Commodities Carbon Rationing Climate Change Contraction & Convergence Emissions Impossible Energy Revival Low Carbon Life Pet Peeves Political Nightmare Renewable Resource Social Change Vote Loser

Poor People Gonna Rise Up

Talking About a Revolution : Tracy Chapman

When are the intellectual and political ranks going to stop trying to apply universal guilt ? The real question to ask is not, “how are we going to get average emissions down ?” You can’t treat all the people in the United Kingdom as one blurred lump. Around 20% of consumers are conscious. Another 20% to 30% are going to be hit directly by any measure designed to put an environmental tax on Carbon, and will have no choice about responding.

Climate Change worldwide is affecting the poorest first and hardest – an expression used by everyone from Nicholas Stern through to Christian Aid. But it’s a stratification of impact that isn’t just global. The poorest in the industrialised countries are suffering hardship too : people who cannot get their homes renovated after floods, people who have to apply for Fuel Poverty assistance.

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Behaviour Changeling Big Picture Carbon Army Climate Change Emissions Impossible Low Carbon Life Pet Peeves Political Nightmare Social Change Technological Sideshow

Pushy, Positive, Persuasion Pitfall

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unNZDByYHzw : The Power of Persuasion
https://evelynrodriguez.typepad.com/crossroads_dispatches/clear_and_resonant_marketing/
“Not Converts, But Consorts”

Despite what the psychologists evidence and the psychotherapists cogitate, there’s no getting through to some people, and I really think we just ought to accept that, stop with the guilt trip and the navel-gazing and admit it : the people with leadership authority have got to start telling people that things will change, whether they come along with it or not.

Everybody knows that there’s no secret to persuasion, no “how to win friends and influence people” magic techniques : you just need to have enough money to guarantee yourself the widest possible audience and the dominant narrative, and your product gets all the sales it needs, and overrides “what if” critique. TV was made for it. The Hollywood film industry is its highest and finest embodiment.

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China Syndrome Energy Revival Peak Energy Peak Oil Pet Peeves Renewable Resource Toxic Hazard

A Very Crude Analysis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Or-TyPACK-g
“A Crude Awakening – Trailer”

I watched the film “A Crude Awakening” for the third time this week with the good people of Transition Waltham Forest.

Several people in the room were strongly affected by the footage of the deserted oil fields of Texas, Baku and Venezuela.

In the discussion after the film I challenged the Green Party activist in the room (hopefully without hurting anyone’s feelings), asking where Energy is in the list of electoral campaign policy priorities. I said I don’t hear strong concern from any political party. It’s a subject that’s just not there.

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Climate Change Media Social Change

Dead Kennedy

Pipped to the news post by other events of global import, social action on Climate Change got completely wiped off the map today.

The necessary Media footage of violence featuring the Police, intended to diffuse tension built up by the BBC and others over the week, was nicely provided by football hooligans, saving anyone having to trump up some charge about the Climate Campers.

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Climate Change Media Non-Science

Sceptics In My Neighbourhood

I wrote to various people in my neighbourhood about a Transition Towns project plan for the local Public Library.

One person wrote back to say he was already in Transition, but that he was a Climate Change sceptic (read “denier”) and he quoted all sorts of current “denier” arguments and sources.

I honestly thought about not bothering to reply at all. I’ve replied to so many Climate Change sceptics (read “deniers”) over the last couple of years. They trot out the same stuff again and again and again, never bothering to update themselves or check the real truth of the matter.

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Big Picture Carbon Army Carbon Commodities Climate Change Emissions Impossible Energy Revival Low Carbon Life Pet Peeves Political Nightmare Renewable Resource Social Change

Camped On Your Doorstep

What would you do if you met a Climate Camper face to face ? And how could you be sure ? Would they have dreadlocks ? A facepainted clown face, raggedy, dirty clothes ? Would they be shouting ?

More to the point, would they be getting in your face ? Or in your way ? Would they be threatening or violent or extremely negative ? Or would they offer you a cup of tea and a nice wholemeal organic flapjack ?

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Carbon Capture Pet Peeves Technological Sideshow Toxic Hazard

Coal : Burning the Future

Here’s one for all my States-side buddies, because nobody in Euroland will get to see this for a while (please correct me if I’m mistaken) : the trailer for the film “Burning the Future”. It’s all about the toxic, dirty nature of Coal Energy :-

https://burningthefuture.semkhor.com/page.asp?s=burningthefuture&content_id=14092

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Climate Change Social Change Unsolicited Advice & Guidance

Message To You, Rudy

Well, the Metropolitan Police in London have tried a charm offensive to make nice with the Climate Camp before it all kicks off. Or have they ? Many Campers have been suspicious of the softly, softly propaganda, and have put together a little message to give right on back to the Met, and it reads a lot like this :-

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Carbon Rationing Climate Change Contraction & Convergence Emissions Impossible Non-Science Political Nightmare Social Change The Data Unutterably Useless Utter Futility Vote Loser

We’re Toast, John Prescott

It seems that Prezza, our dear beloved Climate Change Chief Negotiator is having an attack of the “Tony Blairs” : back-pedalling on Carbon Dioxide reduction targets :-

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Bait & Switch Big Picture Burning Money Carbon Capture Carbon Commodities Emissions Impossible Energy Revival Nuclear Nuisance Peak Energy Peak Oil Pet Peeves Technological Sideshow

Big Energy : Fighting for Survival

The Carbon game’s up : within 40 to 70 years the Petroleum empires will be gone. Even with massive new investment, Hydrocarbon production will be peaking. With supplies of Crude Oil, Natural Gas, and yes, even Coal, starting to fall away, a crucial sub-plot will begin to play out.

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Big Picture Climate Change Contraction & Convergence Emissions Impossible Low Carbon Life Non-Science Political Nightmare The Data Unutterably Useless Utter Futility

Tony Blair : Uncounting Irresponsibility

Climate Change is a problem quintessentially expressed in numbers : how many degrees of warming, how many parts per million of Carbon Dioxide in the air, how much Carbon Dioxide the Oceans, Forests, Rocks, Plants and Soils soak up, how many lives will be affected by drought, famine and sickness, how much Methane could be released from tundra and hydrates, how many species will be lost, perhaps including our own.

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Nuclear Nuisance Nuclear Shambles Pet Peeves Political Nightmare

The Nuclear Begging Bowl Redux

Image Author : Hendrik Tammen

Constructing and operating Nuclear Power facilities has historically required overt and covert support from nation states. A non-negotiable, non-vanishing fraction of every tax dollar/euro/rand goes to keep Atomic Energy alive.

So does the population get some benefit from this costly energy ? Some people ask “payback ? What payback ?” and cast dark hints that Nuclear Energy never has, and never will, produce a net Energy benefit, after all the labour, time, concrete, steel, liquid fuel and other resources that have to be used in reactor building, site monitoring and waste disposal.

So it seemed rather like the British Government had put themselves in a cleft stick, announcing a new round of building Nuclear Fission electricial generation plant, but at the same time foreswearing any state financial support :-

https://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2006/jun/14/energy.greenpolitics

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Wind of Fortune

Wind Power : Superior Variability

Image Copyleft : Jo Abbess

The security of energy supply depends on a number of factors. These days it’s important to make sure we in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland are on good speaking terms with both Saudi Arabia and Russia to be sure of the flow of Crude Petroleum Oil and Natural Gas. Oh, and Norway, of course, since our own (Scotland’s) North Sea treasures are in steep decline.

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Bad Science Climate Change Non-Science

Climate Denialism for Beginners

I thought the issue was settled by now, but oh no. People are still denying that Climate Change is a problem.

Whatever Climate Change event you go to these days, the organisers will still feel obliged to run a session on Climate Change Science, explaining why there is actually a very real and already present problem, and why the sceptics are mistaken. And why some of them are paid to lie.

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Big Picture Climate Change Emissions Impossible Growth Paradigm Political Nightmare Social Change

Tesco Town : Bloated Parasite

Flickr Image : David Breslin @ b3ta

Not content with having four very similar Planning Applications overturned previously in quiet, suburban Highams Park, London E4, (including one taken to a Public Inquiry), nothing seems to be able to stop Tesco trying again, with a remarkably unchanged plan for a mega-superstore with crowded urban-style blocks of adjacent flats.

Only this time it’s got a “travellator”, you know, the kind of moving walkway normally found at airports, to take you from the ground floor car park atrocity to the first floor store.

This is their attempt to design the plan into our hearts. But not even a brilliant architect can make a catwalk model out of this bloated parasitical plan :-

https://www.highamsgreen.co.uk

The local residents are up in arms, flexing their telephone dialling fingers, and furiously typing letters and electronic mails about this abomination of a Planning Application :-

https://www.highamsparkforum.co.uk/tesco.html

If you yourself live in London E4, you can submit a comment on this plan yourself very easily on the Council’s website, quoting the Application Numbers 2008/1490 and 2008/1491 :-

https://www1.walthamforest.gov.uk/webforms/plan_comments/

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Carbon Commodities Climate Change

Carbon Trading isn’t Working

Two signs that Carbon Trading won’t work the way you think it will.

1. It’s going to be so heavily policed to keep the prices stable enough to attempt to have a proper impact, it will end up like a flat Carbon Tax.

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